Bill Littlefield
1 min readJun 18, 2021

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Bumblebee

An engineer examined him, and this is what he said:

“The bumblebee can never fly. He’ll end up on his head.

He’ll stumble, fumble, and he’ll tumble. He will never fly.

His body’s big, his wings too small. It makes me want to cry

To hear this stupid bee believes his future’s in the air.

He ought to see the fact is that he has no business there.”

The bumblebee heard everything. He thought about it, too,

And he knew in his bumble-brain just what he had to do.

He buzzed back at the engineer…a most alarming sound,

And then his wings began to lift him slowly off the ground.

The engineer stood staring as the bumblebee arose.

He couldn’t understand that sometimes that’s the way it goes:

The harder someone tells a bee that he will never fly,

The likelier the bee will rise… and maybe wave goodbye.

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Bill Littlefield

For 25 years I hosted NPR's "Only A Game." Now I write whatever I want to write, which has been great fun.